


i think i heard that line once in a beatles song

by meretricula



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meretricula/pseuds/meretricula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rafa is a little out-of-sorts after losing the Madrid final. Novak gives him a call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i think i heard that line once in a beatles song

Rafa was quiet the night after the final. His team miraculously picked up on his mood, and left him alone, even though he could tell Toni was itching to tell him off for how he'd played. He couldn't help being tired, though, and Toni knew it, and Toni only yelled at him for things that actually were his fault. (Like playing like he didn't care if he won against the No. 2 player in the world. Rafa wasn't thinking about that, though, and maybe Toni was cutting him some slack for once. Or else the anticipation was supposed to be part of the punishment.)

At least Roger was happy now, Rafa thought, and knew Toni would kill him if he could hear him. He didn't care. He was so tired of winning and being unhappy anyway, and Roger losing and being unhappy, and beating Roger and being unhappy because it was his fault, and having to smile and pretend he was glad in three different languages afterwards. It was so stupid. He'd loved playing Roger, before this year: loved beating him, loved losing to him. It didn't matter to Rafa, so long as he played his best. But it mattered to Roger, and Roger mattered to Rafa. Roger mattered a lot. Probably more than he'd realized, before Australia, and standing on that platform and thinking maybe he would rather have lost than see Roger like that.

God, Toni really was going to kill him.

He wasn't unhappy now, which was something. He was really tired, and sort of numb, and he had not played his best _at all_, which was very very not good. But he wasn't unhappy. He was lying on his hotel bed, vaguely wondering if there was a football match on and whether it was worth the effort to look for the remote instead of just going to sleep, when his phone buzzed.

He thought it was going to be Roger, and his stomach was already clenching as he grabbed for the phone and flipped it open, wondering if Roger had figured out what was happening during that match, if he was going to be angry, if he would even care. Rafa would have been angry, if Roger had played badly for him. Roger wasn't always like Rafa: Roger liked to win. Sometimes Rafa thought Roger liked winning better than he liked Rafa.

It wasn't Roger, though, he realized, hearing the accent on the other end of the line. "What the fuck was that today?" Novak demanded. "You play your fucking heart out yesterday, today you fold like wet paper?"

"Hola to you too," Rafa said, determinedly unruffled. "Thank you for congratulate on playing final. I am disappoint not to win, but I try my best and I rest for Paris."

"Rafa, I'm serious," Novak snapped. "That wasn't your knee. That was _you_. I don't - " He stopped, breathed through his nose so loud Rafa could hear it over the phone, started again. "I know that Roger is, he's, fuck, no, I don't know. I know he's special to you. Whatever the fuck he is, I don't even care. He wouldn't want this from you."

"No?" Rafa asked, a little annoyed now. Novak wasn't like Feli or Toni or Carlos: he didn't have the right to talk to him like this. "And you no want to beat me, either? I think you say something different yesterday, no?"

"_Not like that_," Novak said with great finality. "Jesus, Rafa. A Masters Series final isn't like a fucking present. You don't wrap it up in a bow and just give it to Roger like it will make up for Australia and him playing like shit all year. And if he _wants_ it like that then, then, I don't know. He's not the person I thought he was and he doesn't deserve it."

Rafa blinked. He liked Novak okay; he was funny, and pretty nice, actually, except that he tended to turn into an ass whenever the press stuck a microphone in his face. There were worse personality flaws. He wouldn't have said they were _friends_, though, and what he thought Novak was saying, it wasn't something you said if you weren't friends. If you didn't care. "Is one final," he said at last. "Maybe you no hear, I play longest Masters Series match ever yesterday, I am little bit tired. Will be okay."

Novak sighed explosively in response, and the phone crackled under Rafa's ear. "You sure? I've seen you play tired, Raf. You didn't lose because you were tired. You lost because you didn't want it. So, just. God, this is fucking dumb." He started laughing, and Rafa found himself smiling at the sheer weirdness of this conversation, with _Novak_ of all people. "Want it more, you know? I know I don't really get it, the way it is for you with Roger. There's nobody on the tour like that for me, I mean, there's nobody I'm sorry to beat. So I'm not going to, you know, whatever. Just fucking play better next time, okay? It's fucking embarrassing to play my ass off to lose to you and then have you go down in straights."

"You play great match, in the semis," Rafa said, feeling obscurely comforted by Novak's obscenity-strewn lecture. "You beat me soon, I think."

"Yeah, well, you better get yourself together before we play in Paris," Novak said rudely. "I don't want to beat you if you play like you did today."

Rafa laughed. "You be grateful if you get a set off me, if I play like today," he replied, teasing, because Novak could take it. It was hard with Roger, sometimes, to tell what was okay to joke about and what would upset him, and Rafa went awkward and silent because he was afraid that what he wanted to say, in his stumbling English, would make Roger stone-faced and cold. Novak, though, he was like the guys; he'd probably fit right in with them when they played football on playstation and trashed each other for everything from a crappy serve at practice to their mothers' putative sexual habits.

"Whatever," Novak said, and snorted, confirming Rafa's impression of him. "See you in Paris. Get some sleep or something."

"Yeah, yeah, see you. Novak?" Rafa waited, until Novak made an impatient noise, checking to make sure he was listening. "Thanks."

"Whatever," he repeated, and hung up. Rafa smiled, reached for the remote on the bedside table, turned on the TV and immediately found football highlights. He settled back to watch, feeling better than he had since 4-4 in the first set. Two goals in, he picked up the phone again. _u know im not giving u rg rite?_ he texted, and put the phone down to pay attention to the TV. It wasn't a Real Madrid match, but football was football.

The phone buzzed not even a minute later, startling him; he hadn't expected a reply. _wouldn't want it any other way,_ Roger had texted him back. He always spelled everything out when he texted, apostrophes and all; Rafa didn't know why. He was still smiling stupidly at the screen when the phone vibrated in his hand, and another message popped up. _sleep well xoxo_

Rafa thought he would.


End file.
